Smooch
by Lucillia
Summary: Considering the first impression that Aziraphale tended to give, and the number of times he'd kissed Crowley, it wasn't all that surprising that they were constantly mistaken for a couple, even by people who'd known them for years.


Before we start, I'd like to say that I decided to borrow the themes from Live Journal's 30 Kisses, and take this on with the self-appointed challenge of making it so that it isn't actually Slash. Unfortunately, it tends to seem that way at times however, especially when you bring Crowley's drunken mistake or his little nightmare into the picture...

Now, without further ado, on to the good part that you're actually here to see.

**&!&!&!&!&**

**1. Look Over Here. **

Crowley hated children at times, and right now was one of them. At the top of his list at the moment was The Them. Honestly, he should have seen that trick coming from a mile away. The only reason he could think of for why he hadn't was because Adam had been responsible for orchestrating it.

He and Aziraphale had been standing side by side, talking with Anathema Pulsifer who was showing off her new baby when, from one direction there was a call of "Hey Mr. Crowley, lookit what I got!" from Pepper, and a simultaneous cry of "Hey Mr. Fell, C'mere and lookit this!" from Brian coming from a completely opposite direction.

He and Aziraphale turned to see what the people who were calling them wanted them to see at the same time, and they'd ended up tripping over each-other and going down in a tangle of limbs, somehow ending up landing in a rather compromising position that almost looked like a passionate kiss if one were particularly imaginative, or not so imaginative for that matter.

He rapidly pulled his lips away from Aziraphale's as if they were on fire (1), furiously scrubbed at his lips with his sleeve which promptly started smouldering, and spat on the ground to get the taste of angel out of his mouth.

"I'm gonna kill those kidssss." he hissed as he struggled to pull himself away from the chubby blond angel.

_(1) They nearly were. There is a very good reason for why demons didn't go around kissing angels. It is because - for angels - a kiss is a blessing as well as a gesture of affection._

**&!&!&!&!&**

**2. News; Letter. **

Aziraphale - who was currently known as Private Fell by those around him - didn't know who had started the silly little fad, but he'd thought it was cute. He smiled as he added four letters to the back of the envelope he'd carefully placed the letter he'd just written in, imagining the expression that would cross a certain demon's face when the letter finally caught up with Crowley's unit.

Sealed with a kiss indeed.

**&!&!&!&!&!&**

**3. Jolt! **

There are times when Crowley is willing to swear that Aziraphale does it on purpose.

Sometimes, after an evening of hanging out and getting drunk, instead of leaving, Crowley would fall asleep. Aziraphale would let him stay the rest of the night when he did so. Every time he did, the angel would heave him up onto the couch, lay him out in an uncomfortable position that was sure to give him a crick in the neck as well as several other minor aches and pains come morning, and wander off to go do something else. Sometime around dawn, Aziraphale would decide that he looked cold, cover him in a blanket, and give him a peck on the forehead before getting back to whatever it was he'd been doing earlier.

Being pecked on the forehead by an angel will wake a demon up faster than an entire pot of coffee (1) would. It's quite the jolt, and not a pleasant one either.

_(1) Boiling hot coffee that's just been thrown on one's privates._

**&!&!&!&!&!&**

**4. Our distance, and that person. **

Aziraphale sighed. Crowley was good at hiding the pain he was in behind humor and a flashy exterior. Anyone who wasn't an angel would never see it, but he could feel the pain and the loss that constantly radiated from the demon every time he was in his presence.

Every time he saw the demon, he found himself wanting to gather him up into his lap as if he were the small child he often acted like, kiss him on the forehead, smooth back his hair, and tell him that everything would be alright, and that things would work themselves out in the end.

He had to keep his distance though. Any kisses from him, no matter how well meant, would just add to Crowley's pain, and Crowley didn't take too kindly to being coddled or cuddled.

**&!&!&!&!&**

**5. Ano sa (hey, you know...) **

Aziraphale and Crowley were yet again hanging out and getting drunk in the back room of Aziraphale's shop.

"Hey, you know I really love you, right?" a very sloshed Crowley said at some point late in the evening, after he'd gotten half-way through the process of switching his blood for alcohol.

" 'S nice dear." an equally drunken Aziraphale absently replied as he downed more of the contents of his bottle, having reached the point where forgoing a glass was prudent as more of the bottle's contents ended up on the table, couch, or floor rather than in the glass when one was pouring themselves a drink.

"I like _really _love you." Crowley said before abruptly grabbing the angel and pulling him in for a rather passionate kiss which, were he human, he would have regretted when he sobered up in the morning.

Being a demon however, he got instant gratification on the regretting the kiss front, and rather quickly sobered up when he realized that A) he was in an incredible amount of pain, and B) it was a freaking angel and therefore his brother that he was kissing.

**&!&****!&!&!&!&**

**6. The space between dream and reality****.**

When Crowley dreams, it's usually about the worldly pleasures that he likes to indulge in. In that space between dream and reality, in that brief moment between asleep and awake however, there is a world where he had never made the biggest mistake of his existence. It's there for a flash, and then it's gone just as quickly. It's both incredibly beautiful and unbearably painful painful all at once and Crowley both loved and hated being there for those eternal yet all too short moments.

Each time he passes through that world, a joyful Aziraphale was there to greet him with a brotherly hug and a kiss on the cheek that didn't hurt.

**&!&!&!&!&**

**7. Superstar****. **

Crowley joined the rock band more because it gave him something to do while tempting people. He had a talent for music that had been acquired through several centuries of practice, rather than from any innate skill he'd been created with. He also had the slender figure and dashing good looks that were pretty much a requirement for becoming a celebrity these days (1).

He'd sent Aziraphale the ticket to the concert and the backstage pass more for his own personal amusement, rather than out of any expectation that the angel would actually show, and therefore had been surprised to see his equal opposite standing by the door to his dressing room which, though completely unnecessary, had been one of his requirements for any of the venues that the band played at.

Smirking wickedly, he blew the angel a kiss as he walked past him and into the room where a couple bouquets, a small pile of women's knickers, a dozen motel card-keys, and his rather attractive personal assistant who was also a lesbian - and therefore didn't bother him with subtle and not so subtle requests for sex - were waiting.

_(1) That, and having a shit-load of kids, which was something people wouldn't have batted an eye at a century ago. Crowley didn't have the kids. He had wiled away many hours with fantasies of Aziraphale's reaction to him fathering a passel of little yellow-eyed bastards though._

**&!&!&!&!&**

**8. Our own world. **

St. James Park is neutral ground, and not just to the secret agents who lurk in the bushes waiting to meet spies from other nations to broker secret deals which may or may not save their countries. St. James Park was also neutral ground in the war between Heaven and Hell.

It is there that we, a pair of agents who answer to no Earthly authority, often meet to unwind. We speak of what is going on in our lives, and our worries for the future, and reminisce about the past as we feed the ducks.

Though we should be mortal enemies, as we are on opposing sides, each of us is as close to the only true friend that the other has.

As the sun kisses our faces with a warmth that is but a pale shadow of His Grace, we are lost in our own little world where, for a short time, Heaven and Hell don't exist.

**&!&!&!&!&**

**9. Dash****. **

Aziraphale and Crowley had actually met in Heaven, though neither really remembered the incident. Aziraphale, because Crowley was one of thousands of brothers that he'd met in Heaven, one who didn't really stand out compared to some of the more unusual ones he'd run into despite their unorthodox meeting. Crowley, because remembering Heaven and all that he had lost when he Fell was just too painful.

Back in those days, kissing was one of the numerous ways in which the angels showed affection for their siblings. Some angels tolerated it, and some didn't. It was usually done between Angels who were close as human siblings often were however, rather than between two strangers who were pretty much only brothers in name alone.

Young Crowley - who had gone by a different name back then - had been stirring up some excitement that day to alleviate his boredom. He'd pounced on Aziraphale whom he'd never encountered before, and kissed him on the cheek before running off. Taking the bait, Aziraphale had chased after him.

The two of them had dashed across Heaven, leaving chaos in their wake.

**&!&!&!&!&**

**10. #10 **

Shortly before a trip to America, Aziraphale had decided that it was finally time for him to learn how to drive. When the angel had come to him asking for advice, Crowley had thought it to be a brilliant idea to enter him into a demolition derby that was being held out in the country.

He'd sold the idea to the angel by telling him that it would be a good way to get the hang of a car's controls without unintentionally risking the lives of pedestrians or accidentally damaging property that wasn't meant to be destroyed in the first place. Somehow, he had gotten the bookworm who had spent most of his existence since there was an indoors indoors to agree.

Crowley winced involuntarily as Car #10 kissed the ancient stone wall in the middle of the muddy field for the third time, smashing the front fender. He had a lot of money riding on the angel despite the fact that he knew Aziraphale wouldn't deliberately cheat, and he'd rather not lose it.

**&!&!&!&!&**

**11. Gardenia. **

Most people wouldn't have kept a Gardenia plant indoors unless said indoors was a greenhouse. Crowley wasn't most people. The rather healthy looking plant which wasn't thriving to his exacting standards wasn't his responsibility any more however. If it were any other day, he would have murdered the plant and left its empty pot out as an example to the others, but as it was Christmas, he had something that he was otherwise just going to throw away which he could give to Aziraphale as a present instead.

Aziraphale enthusiastically thanked him for the "thoughtful" gift before handing him a handmade scarf which had undoubtedly taken him weeks to make. A handmade scarf which would promptly be thrown into the back of the closet the instant he got back to his apartment. Aziraphale had no sense of style and he wouldn't be caught dead in that brightly colored scarf if he were freezing to death.

"Don't worry, you're safe." Aziraphale said to the terrified plant who'd been given a few last-minute threats before being handed over the instant Crowley was gone, before lightly planting a kiss on one of the softly-scented and out of season blooms which graced it.

**&!&!&!&!&**

**12. In a good mood. **

Today had been going his way from the start, and he should have known it was too good to last. He'd crashed the servers for one of the more popular websites on the internet, causing incalculable damage to people's moods, and adding a bit of tarnish to the souls of millions of frustrated humans across the globe. He'd inspired the creation of some rather execrable programming for children's television which would inspire Wrath, Greed, Sloth, and Pride in the coming generation. And, he'd had a rather nice lunch at the Ritz with the angel before going down to St. James park to feed the ducks.

On the way out of the park, he noticed a group of young boys that were tormenting something. He chased the children away from the creature they were tormenting, and found that it was an injured red squirrel. Without even thinking, he healed the animal.

"Oh Crowley, I knew you had some good in you!" the angel exclaimed before forgetting himself, wrapping his arms around him in a very happy hug, and kissing him on the cheek the way he would the one whom he was closest to amongst the Host.

The kiss, like all of the angel's kisses, burned like Hell. No, worse, it burned like Heaven.

He'd been in a good mood, right up until the Angel had kissed him.

**&!&!&!&!&!&**

**13. Excessive chain. **

Bling - though it's gone by many different names over the millennia - has fallen in and out of style any number of times since the Dawn of Man. Being a flashy "young man" in this day and age meant that he had to make at least a token effort at wearing some these days. That morning, he had chosen to wear an excessively long - and, in his opinion, tacky - gold chain over his usual stylish black clothes.

When he'd dropped by the angel's shop that day, it had been to find that Adam Young, who had recently graduated from University, was there looking at a book with the angel. The two of them waved him over. When he joined the group and leaned down to get a good look at the tome that Aziraphale and Adam had been poring over, and Adam struck quicker than a snake, grabbed the gaudy chain he was wearing, and threw it over Aziraphale's head, forcing them into even closer quarters.

"That's not gonna turn you loose until you stop pretending you don't love each-other and kiss, not a peck, but a good and proper one." Adam said. "Before you go on about me messing you about, don't think I don't know that you've been messing people about yourselves."

He stood there wondering where the hell this had come from. He knew that Aziraphale looked and acted about as straight as Lombard Street - the one in San Francisco - and he often exploited that for his own amusement, but he'd thought that Adam of all people would have understood their actual relationship. But, then again, Adam's only sibling was a much older sister, and he'd been hearing that they were a couple since he was a child.

It was going to be a long day, or possibly week, or month, or even year, or possibly decade or century. If he survived the "Good and proper" kiss from Aziraphale and all of the clumsy "not so proper" attempts that led up to it, he would be strangling that brat. With both the chain, and his own two bare hands.

**&!&!&!&!&**

**14. radio-cassette player. **

Crowley had always thought that the problems he had with the tapes in his car transfiguring themselves into Best of Queen albums if he left them there for more than two weeks had been something that everyone went through. Apparently it wasn't, and it had something to do with him and his infernal powers instead. He'd learned this when he'd purchased a small radio with a cassette player and several cassettes for Aziraphale for Christmas after that whole Apocalypse incident.

Two weeks after Christmas, Aziraphale called him and angrily accused him of switching his music for "be-bop". Two weeks later, he got another angry call from Aziraphale, and another two weeks after that.

Curious, he went down to the shop to investigate.

He had to laugh. Any tape kept in the shop for a fortnight automatically turned into KISS's Hotter Than Hell album when it was played in the radio he'd given the angel.

**&!&!&!&!&**

**15. Perfect blue. **

They stood facing each-other, almost close enough to kiss. If they moved even a millimeter, they pretty much would be.

Aziraphale's eyes were a perfect blue. That ideal shade that called to mind cloudless Summer skies under which children ran around laughing and playing, not thinking about what tomorrow would bring. The color people seemed to think water should be.

Thinking of water made his eyes water.

He would not blink...

He would not blink...

Dammit, he blinked.

A smug smile crossed Aziraphale's face. That was 347 wins for Aziraphale, and 253 for him.

"Are you guys finished?" A rather persistent customer who had stood there for the last hour impatiently tapping her foot and periodically checking her watch asked.

**&!&!&!&!&**

**16. Invincible; Unrivaled **

He was Invincible!

He'd just beaten the shit out of Lucifer and Michael with one hand while surfing the 'net on his phone with the other, and he'd been named the new ruler of All Creation. Females were throwing themselves at his feet in adoration, fighting to the death for even a scrap of his attention. Hastur and Ligur were staring up at him in worshipful awe. Aziraphale was there too, and he was sauntering up to him with a wicked gleam in his eye, and from the way he was dressed, it looked like he'd woken up to the fact that a half-century had passed since the 1950s had ended.

He didn't like the way that Aziraphale was sauntering towards him.

The instant the angel reached him, he grabbed him and pulled him into a passionate kiss, grabbing his arse as he did so.

Aziraphale, who wouldn't know what sex was if it stripped in front of him, spread its legs and bent over, was trying to stick his tongue down his throat. There was something seriously wrong with this picture...

What was it?

Oh, yeah, he was dreaming.

Fuck.

Why did Aziraphale have to ruin all of his fun dreams when they were just getting good? The last time, Aziraphale had turned up dressed as one of the nuns from the Chattering order of St. Beryl and talked him to death.

**&!&!&!&!&**

**17. Kilohertz. **

For angels, and demons for that matter, mind over matter was rather literal. The angel's - or demon's - mind determined the form the matter would take if it took any at all.

At the moment, Aziraphale and Crowley were currently a pair of wavelengths of celestial intent which could be measured in Kilohertz (1) which were winging their way down the phone lines going in opposite directions. Aziraphale, to escape a particularly persistent customer who seemed to be under the mistaken impression that his bibles were actually for sale, and Crowley - who had taken advantage of the opportunity presented by the angel's unexpected call - to escape a rather persistent demon who was determined to make a name for himself Below by being the one to slay the Serpent. Despite the fact that the higher-ups didn't like Crowley and held him in disdain, he still had a reputation that the lower ranks held in awe.

They ended up meeting in the middle and shooting through each-other. For two angels, passing through each-others' being is a profound experience that not even a kiss between two powerful telepaths could begin to compare to. For an angel and a demon, the experience is both profound, and unbelievably painful. Had Crowley not spent so much time around Aziraphale over the millennia, and had Aziraphale not attempted to shield Crowley from himself, Crowley would have been destroyed. If Aziraphale hadn't spent so much time around Crowley, and Crowley not attempted to shield Aziraphale from himself, Aziraphale would have been killed.

The demon who had been following Crowley down the line did a rapid U-turn when it saw what was headed straight for him, and ended up coming out of a completely random phone, badly frightening a previously bored housewife who had been gossiping with her neighbor from down the street about the dreadful family that lived next door, and how badly they treated their nephew.

When Aziraphale reached Crowley's apartment, he allowed himself a small and slightly wicked smile. He'd known that there was a spark of good left in Crowley, and now he had proof.

(1) and even more precisely measured in Petahertz.

**&!&!&!&!&**

**18. "Say Aah...****".**

Usually, demons don't get sick. Actually, demons never got sick. Until now that was. Crowley was rather ill, and it was all Adam's fault. If the brat hadn't gotten it into his head that, since he was human, he was supposed to have had the Chicken Pox, this wouldn't have happened to him. Trust the former Antichrist to come up with a strain of Chicken Pox that was communicable to supernatural beings.

He'd been slightly feverish and itching like crazy when he'd dropped by the bookshop for his usual visit with the angel. Aziraphale took one look at him, and hustled him over to the beaten up couch in the back room, fussing over him, and wrapping him in a tartan flannel blanket. An hour and a half later, after a quick consultation with Anathema, Aziraphale returned to his side with a tray that had calamine lotion, several over-the-counter medications, a bowl of soup, and a glass of ginger ale on it.

"Open wide and say aah..." Aziraphale said as soon as he set the tray down on the floor next to the couch.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because it's something you're supposed to do when you're sick. I think it's to check for sore throat." Aziraphale replied, sounding slightly embarrassed.

"I don't have one." he replied.

Aziraphale shrugged and set aside some sort of spray bottle with that was filled with some sort of red liquid which was of a shade that wasn't found in nature before feeding him some aspirin which he washed down with the ginger ale for the fever, and daubing calamine lotion on the red spots that covered most of his body, which oddly enough relieved the itching. When the angel was done, he tucked the blanket back around him, set the tray with the miraculously still hot soup and ginger ale on his lap, and gave him a light peck on the forehead.

A week later, when he dropped by to visit Aziraphale again now that he was feeling better, it was to find a rather miserable looking angel who was covered in spots.

This was the start of a Heaven and Hell-wide pandemic.

**&!&!&!&!&**

**19. Red. **

Crowley sat there staring at the back of the envelope in which Aziraphale's letter from America was sealed. There was a mix of horror and amusement on his face as he studied the red mark that was prominently displayed in the center of the envelope, just over the flap.

He'd thought that he and Aziraphale had gotten past this after he'd mailed the angel that bomb in reply to one of his letters during the second World War, which was incidentally the last time Aziraphale had ever sent him a letter. Aziraphale hadn't talked to him for years after that.

Based on the shade of the lipstick on this envelope, he thought it reasonably safe to say that the angel had gotten a hooker to seal it with a kiss for him.

**&!&!&!&!&**

**20. The road home. **

The road home had been a long one which had included a circuitous detour through Hell and Earth, and a stint as a demon that had lasted longer than six millennia. But, eventually, it was all over, and the demon who had sauntered in a vaguely downwards direction in the beginning had climbed back up again in the end.

Aziraphale had been the first of his brothers to greet him on his return to the fold. His brother and friend who often let his emotions get the best of him yanked him into a brotherly hug before planting a kiss on his cheek.

This time the kiss didn't burn.

It had been a long road home, but he, like the prodigal son, had made it back, and he would have his favorite brother, and his best friend by his side forever to make the return worth it.

**&!&!&!&!&**

**21. Violence; Pillage/Plunder; Extortion.**

As soon as he found that witch who had turned him into a toddler, she was dead meat. She was worse than dead meat. She would have a special place in Hell reserved just for her. First things first though, he needed help, help of the Heavenly sort.

"I'm sorry Crowley, but I can't help you with this. Aside from the fact that it's a few years younger, there's nothing wrong with your body." Aziraphale said a couple hours later after he'd been kicked off of several buses, had been asked by several police officers where his parents were, and had eventually rather tearfully persuaded a kindly old woman to help him get to his "Uncle's" shop. "Perhaps if you went to the witch who cast the spell..."

It took three days to find the witch who had very wisely hidden herself. Three very trying days in which Aziraphale had nearly depleted his bank account, and had been questioned by the police about Crowley a dozen times. Apparently, when someone who looks gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide goes around town in the company of a small boy that didn't look like them, people get suspicious.

The witch rather unhelpfully informed him that the spell would wear off by itself in a lunar cycle, and he got a rather solid and genuinely antique front door slammed in his face when he leapt forward to rip her to pieces.

"Poor dear, let Uncle Aziraphale kiss it all better." the angel - who would undoubtedly be questioned by the police again in five minutes or less - said in a faux sweet tone before kissing the top of his head.

If anyone knew that the kiss Aziraphale had given him had actually been an act of violence rather than kindness, they would have been up in arms, and rent Aziraphale limb from limb for hurting a poor little kid rather than standing back and watching it happen, like the small audience who had gathered had done. He could understand why the angel had done it though. The whole situation had been hellishly frustrating for the both of them.

**&!&!&!&!&**

**22. Cradle. **

Crowley cradled the dying angel in his arms. To be honest, he thought that it was him who would be the one to die. Demons died more frequently than angels did, permanently or otherwise.

Aziraphale had been felled by friendly fire. Without thinking, the angel had leapt into the path of a killing blow that had been meant for him. The wound he'd received as a result was fatal, not in a "Hang around in heaven waiting for a new body" way, but in a "You're not coming back from this one" way.

As Aziraphale gasped in agony, breathing his last despite the fact that angels didn't need to breathe, he pressed a kiss to his friend's, his comrade's, his brother's forehead.

Like all of Aziraphale's little kisses which he gave when he forgot himself and exactly what Crowley was, it burned.

**&!&!&!&!&**

**23. Candy. **

He knew that he shouldn't have set them out since it would only encourage the "customers", but it was nearing Christmas, and it was his duty to do something to spread the good-will of the season.

Candy, especially the sort of candy that is said to contain chemicals that the body naturally produces when a human is in love, seemed to be a good and rather inexpensive idea at the time.

Crowley had dropped by while he was busy rearranging his shelves and ignoring a customer. Rather uncharacteristically, he didn't hang around and bother him for the rest of the day as he was wont to do.

When he turned to the customer after he'd gotten the shelf organized in the approximate alphabetical order of a long dead and forgotten language from before the Flood to tell him "I'm sorry, but we're actually closed right now.", he found the man staring wistfully and almost hopefully at the dish that was sitting on the counter by the register which only contained an empty candy wrapper.

Aziraphale bit back an angry exclamation. That gluttonous demon he occasionally hung around with had apparently pilfered every last one of the Hershey's Kisses from the dish.

When he went to re-fill the dish for the poor man who looked vaguely like a kicked puppy, he discovered that the demon had taken the supply from behind the counter with him as well.

**&!&!&!&!&**

**24. Good Night. **

Jealousy made itself at home in the pit of Crowley's stomach as he watched Aziraphale tend to the throw-away Gardenia he'd given him for Christmas. The plant was far healthier than it had any right to be, and looked better than the rather lush and extremely well-behaved plants he kept back at his apartment.

As Crowley watched, the angel gently pruned away dead leaves before tenderly watering the plant, cooing reassurances that it was a good and wonderful plant all the while. It was at the point when he'd finished watering the thing that Aziraphale's behavior towards the plant which was still blooming out-of-season had turned frankly bizarre.

"I can't believe you. You're actually kissing it good-night." Crowley said incredulously as he shook his head and cast his eyes hellward.

**&!&!&!&!&**

**25. Fence. **

The soft, smooth, deadly sound of the kiss of steel against steel, barely parted the silence of the night. It was the hammer and tongs clanging of the blades clashing against each other a few moments later that ripped the formerly peaceful silence that had blanketed that region of the mostly sleeping town to shreds. It had been centuries since the two of them had last seen each-other, and here, when they almost thought they had finally seen the back of the other for good, they ran into each-other in a backward Anglo-Saxon trading town called Lundenwic.

Though Aziraphale, who had apparently been living here for a while - in contrast to Crowley who had just come off of a trading vessel that morning - had been unarmed at the time, the fight was soon on, as a young man who'd wanted a bit of entertainment had loaned him his sword.

The man shouldn't have been so surprised that the chubby and bookish angel was so adept with a blade though...

The two of them had been reasonably evenly matched until Crowley's cloak had caught on the fence of a goat enclosure. From there, the tide of the battle rapidly turned in Aziraphale's favor, and Crowley felt the deadly kiss of steel.

As Crowley was Discorporated, he thanked all that was holy and unholy that Aziraphale's borrowed blade hadn't been blessed.

**&!&!&!&!&**

**26. If only I could make you mine... **

Acquisitiveness wasn't supposed to be in an angel's make-up. Aziraphale knew that, but every time he passed by the window of a certain bookstore in one of the more well-heeled parts of town, he found himself thinking _If only I could make you mine... _

The object of Aziraphale's desire was a rare, one-of-a-kind, well cared for, autographed first edition collection of Shakespeare's plays that had been printed shortly before his death, and predated the First Folio by about a decade. It contained a sizable number of interesting printing errors, and it was also so far outside of Aziraphale's price range that it wasn't even funny.

One day, as he passed by the Rare and Antique book sellers who actually sold their stock, he felt a wave of sadness wash over him when he noticed that the book he'd passed by almost every day for months was no longer in the window. Disheartened, he made his morose way back to his own dingy little shop.

When he arrived, it was to find a Crowley who had gotten tired of waiting from him emptying out his cash register. He slammed the door to his shop shut behind him, causing the bell above it to give a sharp and accusing tinkle. Crowley's hands shot back from the register as if they were fire, and he looked up guiltily.

"I got something for you angel." Crowley said as he gestured to a wrapped package that was sitting innocently on the counter.

Aziraphale, almost hesitantly picked up the package and nervously opened it, curious about what was inside, and praying that it wasn't more porn. He so hated throwing books out, but there was a kind that he absolutely would not and could not keep, and Crowley knew it. His prayers were answered this time, it wasn't porn. It was the book that he had been longing for for months.

"Thank You!" he cried before he flung himself at the demon, and hugged him and kissed him in his excitement over his gift.

"Dammit Angel, what'd you go and do a thing like that for?" Crowley yelled as he pushed him away, before furiously scrubbing at his burning lips with the sleeve of his nice black coat which promptly began to smoulder.

**&!&!&!&!&**

**27. Overflow. **

Crowley had been the first person in his neighborhood to get one of those flush toilet things that periodically cropped up throughout history but never stayed, despite the fact that he didn't need it. The demon had purchased it because it was a rather exotic way of flaunting his wealth.

One of the first people he'd showed it off to had been Aziraphale. The instant that Aziraphale was left alone with the device, he found that he couldn't resist playing with it. Watching various objects that had been nearby whirl around a few times before vanishing, along with the water they were swirling around in was endlessly fascinating.

One time, after he'd flushed about a dozen items down the toilet, the object vanished, and the water didn't. Thinking that something might be wrong with the toilet, Aziraphale pulled on the chain that caused it to flush, figuring a second flush would make the water go down. The toilet bowl filled with water that didn't disappear. Almost desperately, as he could hear Crowley approaching, he pulled on the chain again. The toilet overflowed.

Crowley entered the room as Aziraphale was grabbing a towel in a vain attempt to mop up the water before the problem got worse.

"Get ready to kiss your arse goodbye Angel!" Crowley snarled angrily when he took in the scene of chaos in his bathroom, and the fact that several of his more expensive imported soaps were missing.

**&!&!&!&!&  
**

**29. The Sound of Waves. **

They'd both gone to Scotland, him to Glasgow and Aziraphale to Edinburgh, and the both of them to the Northern coast just for the hell of it. They had found themselves in a place where rather than the sounds of human civilization, the roar of the ocean as the waves crashed into the rocky shore, the cries of sea birds overhead, and the barks of the seals which lay along the beach filled the air.

They both breathed a sigh of relief as they just sat and listened, unwinding in a place where the pace was one determined by nature rather than a much faster and more arbitrary one determined by Man.

Several of the nearby seals gathered around them, curious as to what they were doing there. Smiling, Aziraphale miracled up a few fish and tossed them to the creatures who eagerly gobbled them down in an oddly polite manner. A bunch of the seals who had gotten fish, both male and female practically mobbed the angel and started kissing every part of him they could reach. Laughing, at the animals' antics, the angel let them.

Aziraphale wouldn't be half so eager to let those seals keep kissing him if he knew that they were actually Selkies. He should probably warn him, especially since one of the more aggressive males looked to be particularly eager to try getting into the angel's trousers, and didn't seem to be in the mood to take no for an answer. That determined male wasn't the only one vying for Aziraphale's attentions though, and things could become very violent if they didn't get out of there soon. A being who could make fish appear out of thin air was considered quite the catch amongst the Selkie.

**&!&!&!&!&**

**30. Kiss.**

Crowley didn't know why he did it. It probably had been more out of a morbid sense of curiosity, than any sort of suicidal tendencies he may or may not have possessed. He'd died enough times against his will, and should have been wary of it happening again. As the saying went however, "Curiosity killed the cat.".

How could someone actually drown in less than a foot of water?

That had been the question that had bothered Crowley to the point of near-obsession after he'd watched the rather tragic news story on his state-of-the-art, wafer thin, flat-screen television. After deciding to see how such a thing was possible, he had learned exactly how it was possible.

Five minutes after the darkness took him and he was sure he was on the slow elevator to Hell, he returned to consciousness screaming. Aziraphale was leaning over him with a concerned look on his face.

"Are you alright dear?" Aziraphale asked.

No, he was not alright. Being given the "Kiss of Life" by an angel is probably the worst experience a demon could have outside of Hell. He was damned lucky that Aziraphale had been thinking, and the water in his lungs hadn't accidentally gotten turned into holy water.


End file.
